


How We Fall

by anorchidisnotaflower



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Drunkenness, First Kiss, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-02 13:22:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8669296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anorchidisnotaflower/pseuds/anorchidisnotaflower
Summary: "He’s looking at you, dulled and somehow sharpened by the drinks, and you wonder how one person, one angel, dam—bles—whatever, can possibly be so beautiful."
In which Crowley takes his time realizing, and takes time away.





	

It comes as a series of realizations to you.

First, it happens at the Ritz – Aziraphale is staring at you over his usual glass of wine (Chardonnay, 1886), and you’re meeting his eyes with your own, covered by sunglasses. It is not an irregular occurrence, but something in the way he’s looking at you (he looked at you the same way before the End) makes your heart skip a beat.

You blink once, and the thought is there, just out of your reach.

You ignore it.

 

The second time it happens is in your car, on the way back to Aziraphale’s shop. You’re both laughing about something ridiculous (you knew he would, that wine always gets him) and he looks at you again, making eye contact in the dark and the flickering lights of passing cars.

You see it, again, that flicker of something like lights, and before you realize it, you’re about to cause a ten-car pile-up.

You aren’t sure which one of you does it—a blessing or a damnation, either way—but the road is cleared at a moment’s notice, and you reluctantly drag your eyes back to the road ahead.  


You don’t speak for the rest of the drive.

 

The third, the last, is over your tenth – twentieth – fifteenth – hundredth – whatever-ith glass or bottle or whichever, both of you slumped over on the couch in the shop’s back room. You’re laughing, and the room seems much brighter than it was before (your sunglasses, your sunglasses, they’re in the corner again). He’s looking at you, dulled and somehow sharpened by the drinks, and you wonder how one person, one angel, dam—bles— _whatever_ , can possibly be so beautiful.

You’re staring, and he stares right back.

You haven’t been laughing for a while now, and you’re tempted to let this one go again, to let the glances fade away once more, to let tomorrow come and set everything back to normal.

But, you think as you lean closer, nothing was ever normal for you two in the first place.

Before you can fully realize what you’re doing your lips are on his, and you take the chance and run with it, one of your hands fumbling over to his face, the other not quite sure that it’s a hand anymore.

You consider, for the briefest of moments, that you’re both drunk as all he—heav—oh, _fuck_ —and you probably shouldn’t be kissing him this aggressively right now.

You also realize, as you take this moment to yourself, that he is not kissing you back.

In fact, he’s not moving at all.

You yank yourself away as quickly as you moved in, breathing fast for a reason unrelated to the kiss.

He’s still staring at you, eyes wide, and says nothing.

You want to die.

So you leave.

 

You’re on a beach somewhere in South Florida, and you have not spoken to Aziraphale in twenty years.

In that time, you’ve been all over the world–visited the entirety of Europe twice, Russia once (the cold was not for you), Asia thrice (Aziraphale would have loved it), Australia on occasion, and America now serves as your current tourist destination.

You’ve been living off martinis and high-class food that you don’t pay for, and you’re absolutely miserable.

You wish you could find it in yourself to go back, but you’re a coward, and this is what cowards do.

They run.

 

You’re lying on your back on the floor in the luxurious hotel room you stole, and you’re tempted to get a needle or a knife or something and just get it over with. You know Below wouldn’t be too happy about giving you a new body, but at least it would help you avoid him for another while.

Another thirty years, maybe.

Just as you pull yourself off the floor, your phone rings.

No one else has the number, and no one else has ever called.

Despite everything, you pick up.

“Crowley,” the voice on the other end says, and who else could it have been, really?

You say nothing, letting the distant static answer for you.

“Crowley, please,” he says, and you think he’s crying.

“I can’t take this anymore,” he starts again. “This silence. I know… I know you wanted space, after… what happened, but it’s too much.”

“I miss you,” he whispers.

And you swear what’s left of your heart, if you ever had one, breaks.

Before you know what you’re doing you’re outside his shop and you burst in, still clutching the phone in your hands and you distantly hear him say, “What—“

And then he is there, right in front of you, and you don’t know whether you want to kiss him or hug him or punch him across his round jaw or kill him in cold blood.

So you stand there instead, utterly useless.

“Aziraphale,” you say, your voice breaking on the second syllable. You think you might be crying, but you would never admit it.

He smiles, then, his face breaking open into that sunshine you so longed for, and he reaches out for you, a single hand held out in offering.

You take it.

“Don’t ever leave me again,” he says later, face buried in the front of your suit.

“I won’t,” you promise him, and it is the one you keep, the one you will always keep.


End file.
